Deer Camp: Story

'Greatest Weekend Ever'

Spending time with dad right up there with two kills on one day

Dennis is proud and the moment is deserving of a high-five.

By: Logan Tietje, Special to OutdoorChannel.com

Editor’s Note: The following first-person report was written by Logan Tietje, a 10th-grader at Welsh High School in Roanake, La., who just turned 15 and had a memorable experience on the first day of Louisiana’s youth gun season.

Hunting is one of the greatest sports to me. You may not get a ring for the biggest animal killed or for the most number of animals killed, but hunting is what I love to do on my free time.

When I found out that youth season started on Sept. 28 this year, I had a smile from ear to ear. On Friday, the day before youth season, my dad, Dennis Tietje (Bassmaster Elite Series angler and fishing guide), was waiting in the driveway with his camouflage on for my bus to pull up and drop me off.

As soon as I stepped off that bus, I knew the greatest weekend was about to happen.

So, we took off. As soon as we got to camp, I hopped out of the truck and unloaded the Polaris off the trailer and grabbed the luggage. The first thing I did was made sure the gun was OK and ready to go first thing in the morning.

Click the image to see photos of Logan's memorable hunt

The morning of the first day of youth season was going to be awesome; at least that’s what the radar told us. It was a beautiful morning, cloudy, warm, and a case of buck fever.

The mosquitoes were horrible but thankfully my dad brought his Thermacell, which saved the hunt.

Even though we hadn’t seen a deer yet, I was just too excited. It was about 7:40 in the morning when five does walked out -- one big doe and two fawns, and one big doe with one fawn. They stayed there for quite awhile.

I really wanted to shoot a doe because we need to take some off of the property to control population. My dad gave me the A-Ok to shoot, and it was kind of a tricky shot because the doe wasn’t completely broadside. So I put the cross arrows on the front point of the doe’s shoulder and slowly squeezed the trigger. The next thing I knew, the doe just dropped in its tracks.

This made my heart start pumping and I really wanted to go down to it, but I learned that just because a deer looks dead doesn’t mean it actually is. So, we waited about an hour, and then we got down, went and got the Polaris, or buggy as my family calls it, and loaded up the deer.

When we got to the camp, we began to skin it and clean it. Dad showed me how to cut the backstrap and tenderloin from the deer properly. He also showed me how to de-bone the rest of the deer for processing.

We had a really good time because we knew that this deer is going to make some really good jerky and sausage for gumbo.

After we finished cleaning, my Uncle Robert had made some really delicious gumbo with a boiled egg. I was thinking the same thing you are right now, but it was amazing. That meal really gave me a nice cozy nap after that.

Around 4 p.m. we headed back out to the same stand, hoping to see a buck. We saw absolutely nothing, except three raccoons. If they stayed there until dark my dad promised that one of them wouldn’t ever see the light of day again. I tried not to laugh.

So the sun began to set and all of a sudden, my dad spots a big deer in one of the shooting lanes. I tried to see what it was but it was too far to tell. But then we turned around and there was a nice buck closer in the other lane.

So I had to move my gun out the side window and bring it to the opposite window without making a single sound because if you barely sniff, they’re gone.

I take aim at the back part of the shoulder of the buck. My dad whispered, “If you have a shot, take it.”

So I aimed. I was 99.99 percent sure it was the back point of the shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. After I shot, my legs were shaking like a kid who just ate a ton of candy.

We wasted no time in going search for the deer because if we didn’t find it now, we were not going to find it that night. We began to walk down to the area where I shot him and saw he had went the opposite way we thought he had.

So we had searched and searched for blood but we didn’t find any. My dad was starting his way back. I assumed to tell me he didn’t find any blood, but he just so happened to catch a glimpse of some blood on some tall grass and boom, we were on the trail.

Soon enough, we found him about 75 yards away from where I had shot him. It was a nice 6-point buck. This made me so excited. I stopped for a minute and thought “Two deer in one day. Gosh, this is awesome!”

I am one lucky person because many kids my age do not get to do things like this. The tips that have helped me every hunt, which my dad has taught me, is always have patience even if you don’t see anything.

One other tip he taught me is if you are about to shoot a buck and you know it’s a good one, do not look at the horns. Looking at the horns will distract you and mess your shot up or get you so excited you make a bad shot and injure the creature.

This was one of the greatest weekends because I have gotten to spend time with my dad and I killed two for my records. I know there are a lot of hunters out there and I wish you the best of luck!